Pottery has long been considered one of the most popular crafts in Russia. Lipetsk artisans were also engaged in this business, thanks to which the Romanovo toy, which got its name from the village in which it was made, became famous. In addition to small whistles for children, potters also made larger figures, which could no longer be classified as toys, but as decorative figurines.

It is no coincidence that local artisans, the creators of this item, sculpted the writer Leo Tolstoy in a coffin: the last week of his life was spent on Lipetsk land, at the Astapovo railway station (now the urban-type settlement called “Lev Tolstoy”). The writer fell ill on the way to Novocherkassk and had to get off the train at the nearest station.

The head of the station, Ivan Ivanovich Ozolin, first gave Tolstoy a room in his house, and then the whole house. Leo Tolstoy was constantly afraid of being chased, worried that he might be found and forced to return him to Yasnaya Polyana. He was delirious:

He was not aware that the whole world knew about his whereabouts.

The station was filled with correspondents, and newspapers printed reports on the state of his health. On November 7, 1910, Leo Tolstoy’s earthly life ended at the Astapovo station. His last words were:

The toy is decorated with black paint. The coffin depicts the writer’s wife Sofya Andreevna and a gendarme with the face of Nicholas II. The authorities considered the writer an enemy of the state. They were afraid that there could be anti-government statements at the funeral, so many gendarmes were present.

For Tolstoy, the terms “power” and “violence” were the same. For this reason, the gendarme has the face of an emperor. Aleksey Sergeevich Suvorin, a publisher and a journalist, who owned the Novoye Vremya newspaper, wrote:

This Romanovo toy belongs to the old donations — before 1947. However, it is impossible to say exactly when this work was created. The employees of the Lipetsk Regional Museum of Local Lore managed to find it when they were sorting out the collection.